I love it when CEOs of other competitor companies cry foul. It's cute in a childish way and reminds me of kids bemoaning injustices of others. Am I to believe that Firefox OS will run Microsoft Edge or IE 11 and let me to set those browsers as default in Firefox OS?

Maybe, just maybe, Chris Beard needs to rethink Mozilla's model as technologies are changing and get out of the era of 1980's-90's thinking. You know when floppies discs were common.

I'm surprised how bright the photos are of Pluto. Can someone enlighten me on how NASA is getting pictures of Pluto when the Sun would look like a star from the surface of Pluto? Or are those really not pictures in the conventional sense and radar images?

This article is not worth the time. The author outlines in 5 pages his personal feelings about a Gnome and KDE. No technical insights or logical arguments. Just 5 pages of feelings. I surmise the author needed to get paid writing a fluff piece of complete waste of time article.

The thing about enterprise IT is non-technical people make the technical decisions for the enterprise. Instead of setting the strategies, they are the ones that make "the call" on what technology to use. Especially when your surpass the six-figure range. It's the thou-shalt executives who make the god-like decisions that the underlings must then make happen. Oracle has been and continue to be the most overpaid technology in the market rivaling SAP. Being in the decision room when it comes to Oracle and saying"know you MySQL or SQL Server" can do the exact same thing, is career suicide. It's like Oracle has become the designer bag for corporate executives. Then it always takes the non-technical employees by surprise to the heavy hand that is Oracle. And then the FUD comes into play with transitioning away from Oracle.

From what I can tell, Microsoft sees it's not about the OS like it once was over the last three decades and it's now more about the services when it comes to the margins and being profitable. Sure OSes can facilitate those services, but why continue to toil in a model that will not sustain future growth. This donation could be Microsoft hedging the need for secure transportation layer of services they are gearing up for. The donation is far less than what it would cost to maintain the developers on their end. As much as we still desire some version of "us against them" or "stick it to the man", I bet the OpenBSD developers are more than grateful to receive funding to continue their work they love.

I cannot disagree with your statements. So to add, Apple's idea is more about individuality. Trying to give Enterprise IT departments knobs and levers to control Apple products is pretty foreign to them. Where as controlling Windows based PC is far more malleable for IT departments. So asking Apple to "enterprise" their products is not in Apple's DNA. This is why Apple and IBM joined up to try to get more iPads in the workplace. I have seen the sales and marketing pitch from the IBM teams swarming to sell their enterprise wares for the iPads. It's not pretty and I felt bad for the IBM reps after we put them through the technical points needed by IT infrastructure. It was a slaughter. And the #1 constant answer was "well Apple doesn't allow" or "well Apple hasn't put the hooks into the code to allow that." After the dust settled, it was embarrassing. Apple knows this and even if the margins were high, they aren't high enough to take on such a massive risk. If Apple breaks something they can deal with a million individual complaints. If Apple breaks something at the enterprise level, they cannot deal with the thousands of $1 million and plus contractually obligated customers.

1) Go to the most prestigious college you can get into. I can go through a tedious recital on experience how HR department recruit from select prestigious colleges. This part will give you the best pedigree and certification stamp. The school's practical sense could be totally crap, but understand the wax seal of polished stature gives you a boost. The company I work for needs Data Scientists like fish need water. Do we recruit for the college 20 miles away that have a dedicated Data Scientist program and degree? No, they recruit from the top 100 ranked universities only.

2) Have more than just a resume after college. Usually what graduates hear is "internships" and "co-opts." Sure okay, but not really. You need to have a real working portfolio that shows off your skills. Like become top #3 contributor to an established Open Source project, or develop your own application from scratch. Something to showoff with that is tangible beyond course work.
3) The college methos, ground into the youth at a young age, is get a college degree and you will get a career. It's like expecting a prize at the end of the gauntlet or meat grinder. That's a lie. If you really want to do something you have the have passion. Without that, you cannot be the captain of your life. Instead you are stranded in a lifeboat and will be tossed around.

There is a gulf difference between what I consider Computer Science and Computer Programming. They are easily mistaken as one in the same. The easiest way to explain the differences between a computer scientist and a computer programmer is a computer scientist develops algorithms optimized for binary logic; they are in a sense the mad scientists in the lab. Where as a computer programmer knows a set of computer languages and creates solutions; which they are in a sense the practical applicators of what computer scientists create.

Now there is a lot of overlap between the two in varying degrees based on the skill set one has. Most computer scientists have programming skills and most programmers know how to optimize code, but it's what the primarily focus on that splits the difference.

What this author is trying to say is computer programming can be a trade of a learned skill set, much like a brick layer is a learned skill set; albeit a crude example. If companies are bemoaning about the lack of computer programmers and the skill sets in the market, then they need to realize that mandating a college degree is not needed. It makes no sense that 120+ credit hours from a collegiate university where a large chunk of those credits have nothing to do with the skills sets needed for the degree are needed. When in actuality, 1 to 2 years of full time study in just computer programming is more than enough. This is the same for other trades like electricians, plumbers, machinists, and the other vital skill sets needed for society's infrastructure. We do not expect the vital skill sets for these (electricians, plumbers, etc. etc.) professionals to have 4 to 6 years degrees. IT makes no difference to me if an electrician has read and studied G. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or if a plumber understand the photosynthesis of pine trees. Yet for some unknown reason companies think you must have the lick and seal of a university degree to be a "good" computer programmer.

Try to release updates to the masses of OEMs on the market is not something easily accomplished with the varying degrees of different hardware. When Microsoft finally released the first Surface it was proof that someone at Microsoft realized that some of their brand name tarnish was from trying to be compatible with OEM hardware they had no control of. And it comes to no surprise that patches and upgrades fouled up many OEM computers.

I find myself thinking many times the amount of waste for simple products is insane. Example of all the plastic encasement around products needed to hang products from pegs in office stores. How cereal needs both a cardboard box and a plastic bag. Where are so many containers un-reusable? When I run out of ketchup, I throw a perfectly good plastic bottle away because I cannot go to the grocery store to refill it. But I can refill 20 gallon jugs of water.

I would support a tax on products that incurred a waste footprint. That way I could complain the manufacturers with my pocketbook.

It's a free service, get over it. Complaining is like yelling at the moon for being to bright or not bright enough. Facebook is a service service and as such complaints should be routed to/dev/null. Facebook will change once people stop using it. The key aspect is stopping using a few service.

Now that Disney has completed the scream test and rid themselves of easy to remove IT staff, the next phase will begin. A slightly slower, albeit more slightly heightened, attrition model approach will be taken. A few divisional moves across country with restrictions on telecommuting, some project transitions, and new hire restrictions will get Disney where they wanted to go in the end.

There is no doubt, Disney's intentions are clear and goals have been set. There are many ways to get to the final goal. If I was a Disney employee, I would consider this time a reprieve and would desperately disembark ASAP under my own power and not on my rump.

This ruling could shove crowd sourcing models out of state. If what is said in the ruling is true, then this in affect touches on a lot of crowd sourcing business models. I can image services like TopCoder and Elance would need to treat developers in CA like employees also. And what about paid bloggers? Should the tech giants of Silicon Valley now be required to treat people they pay for finding security flaws as employees also? Should Airbnb now treat people that use their service as CA employees? It makes sense, Airbnb are the same as Uber in every sense of the business model that the CA labor department argues against.

But I am torn and I see the labor departments point. What stops all companies from claiming they are crowd sourcing their employees. As silly as it sounds, nothing would stop Walmart, McDonalds, etc. etc., from crowd sourcing their employees. If the CA labor department said that once a service exceeds a specified threshold of contractors to employees within the state of CA, then the company has to treat the contractors as employees would make the best sense.